The skeleton of a creature that would no doubt find familiarity in the throes of Artist’s mind stood beside a puppet who would strike likewise similarities with one he had seen on the same occasion, waiting for its charges to accompany the two soulless contraptions to the depths once more. Aidni was becoming a more and more frequented venue for the Dead as its anatomical infrastructure had been infiltrated and gained a more thorough understanding of. The footprints from the first expedition had long since been sanded down by the grating pressure of the breeze and the smooth lull of the rolling tide.
Each of the three men moving this situation would, not unlike last time, be waited for with boundless patience and a keen eye that did not manifest itself visibly upon the operator of the crab shuttle.
There were seagulls on the horizon, barely visible as their double-arched forms scattered across the sky. The way they played havoc with the sun’s rays from that distance was momentous. Huge shadows that blotted out stretches of the beach in leaps and bounds grew nearer and nearer the two figures atop the bridge. The fitted and, in turn, reformatted Worker Puppet looked upward with a featureless gaze that bore no source, but more meaning than the human eye could ever decipher.
The reason the silhouettes of these birds had swallowed the sandy conglomerate there was because they were not seagulls. They were giant hawks. There were four of them, their talons sharp and their beaks wide with a furious dirge that would screech in the same mechanical manner the operator puppet had first spoken to Aidni Expiditionary Unit No. 1. The puppet positioned beside its mechanical transportation drone let its jaw snap open. Until now, it had looked almost human, but the degree at which its bottom row of teeth hinged downward was more unnatural even than the fact that it had no eyes.
A low grumble would manifest itself in the bowels of the standing puppet, and as if cut at its roots, it would come to a halt and the puppet’s mouth snapped shut. The winged beasts came to the ground and, as their backs became visible, their master’s back would straighten and his lightly padded, black shoes smacked against the sand and made the first human imprints on the ground. His signature black bandana was all ripped up, but he still wore it. A new one was in order, but the sentimental value would never be the same. This was its retiring mission.
Should the two accompanying teammates have chosen, they would have been transported to that point by two other of those same birds. Whatever the case was, immediately after whoever had left their steed’s back, the birds would take flight once more and return to their place of origin- Main HQ.
There Cain would stand for a moment; each black, polished button on his black suit reflected the sunlight in one tiny ray that found its pinpoint at the silver centerplate on each one. His tie, crimson as his hair, had somehow managed to remain flattened against his chest throughout the entirety of his or their ride. Even so, he smoothed any folds that may have sought purchase upon his precious visage.
Then he would look up as if suddenly aware of his surroundings, turning and looking to the puppet that stood at a slightly more noticeable posture of attention. He smiled that even his mindless machines knew the right thought pattern here. He nodded to it with that same smile, and the synthetic joints almost within the volume level of auditory detection would relax and bend to the natural resting position.
Their journey to Aidni would be short, but Cain had made brief and clear their instructions before the gathering on that beach was made. So nervousness had not set in. It would not. He waited as patiently as his puppets if his comrades had not come with him or already arrived. If they were not already there, they would come upon him standing with his toes just before the extent of the washing tide, eyes alight with the red sun setting.
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